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A statistical anomaly indicates symbiotic origins of eukaryotic membranes
Compositional analyses of nucleic acids and proteins have shed light on possible origins of living cells. In this work, rigorous compositional analyses of ∼5000 plasma membrane lipid constituents of 273 species in the three life domains (archaea, eubacteria, and eukaryotes) revealed a remarkable sta...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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The American Society for Cell Biology
2015
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4454172/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25631820 http://dx.doi.org/10.1091/mbc.E14-06-1078 |
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author | Bansal, Suneyna Mittal, Aditya |
author_facet | Bansal, Suneyna Mittal, Aditya |
author_sort | Bansal, Suneyna |
collection | PubMed |
description | Compositional analyses of nucleic acids and proteins have shed light on possible origins of living cells. In this work, rigorous compositional analyses of ∼5000 plasma membrane lipid constituents of 273 species in the three life domains (archaea, eubacteria, and eukaryotes) revealed a remarkable statistical paradox, indicating symbiotic origins of eukaryotic cells involving eubacteria. For lipids common to plasma membranes of the three domains, the number of carbon atoms in eubacteria was found to be similar to that in eukaryotes. However, mutually exclusive subsets of same data show exactly the opposite—the number of carbon atoms in lipids of eukaryotes was higher than in eubacteria. This statistical paradox, called Simpson's paradox, was absent for lipids in archaea and for lipids not common to plasma membranes of the three domains. This indicates the presence of interaction(s) and/or association(s) in lipids forming plasma membranes of eubacteria and eukaryotes but not for those in archaea. Further inspection of membrane lipid structures affecting physicochemical properties of plasma membranes provides the first evidence (to our knowledge) on the symbiotic origins of eukaryotic cells based on the “third front” (i.e., lipids) in addition to the growing compositional data from nucleic acids and proteins. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4454172 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | The American Society for Cell Biology |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-44541722015-06-16 A statistical anomaly indicates symbiotic origins of eukaryotic membranes Bansal, Suneyna Mittal, Aditya Mol Biol Cell Articles Compositional analyses of nucleic acids and proteins have shed light on possible origins of living cells. In this work, rigorous compositional analyses of ∼5000 plasma membrane lipid constituents of 273 species in the three life domains (archaea, eubacteria, and eukaryotes) revealed a remarkable statistical paradox, indicating symbiotic origins of eukaryotic cells involving eubacteria. For lipids common to plasma membranes of the three domains, the number of carbon atoms in eubacteria was found to be similar to that in eukaryotes. However, mutually exclusive subsets of same data show exactly the opposite—the number of carbon atoms in lipids of eukaryotes was higher than in eubacteria. This statistical paradox, called Simpson's paradox, was absent for lipids in archaea and for lipids not common to plasma membranes of the three domains. This indicates the presence of interaction(s) and/or association(s) in lipids forming plasma membranes of eubacteria and eukaryotes but not for those in archaea. Further inspection of membrane lipid structures affecting physicochemical properties of plasma membranes provides the first evidence (to our knowledge) on the symbiotic origins of eukaryotic cells based on the “third front” (i.e., lipids) in addition to the growing compositional data from nucleic acids and proteins. The American Society for Cell Biology 2015-04-01 /pmc/articles/PMC4454172/ /pubmed/25631820 http://dx.doi.org/10.1091/mbc.E14-06-1078 Text en © 2015 Bansal and Mittal. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). Two months after publication it is available to the public under an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0). “ASCB®,” “The American Society for Cell Biology®,” and “Molecular Biology of the Cell®” are registered trademarks of The American Society for Cell Biology. |
spellingShingle | Articles Bansal, Suneyna Mittal, Aditya A statistical anomaly indicates symbiotic origins of eukaryotic membranes |
title | A statistical anomaly indicates symbiotic origins of eukaryotic membranes |
title_full | A statistical anomaly indicates symbiotic origins of eukaryotic membranes |
title_fullStr | A statistical anomaly indicates symbiotic origins of eukaryotic membranes |
title_full_unstemmed | A statistical anomaly indicates symbiotic origins of eukaryotic membranes |
title_short | A statistical anomaly indicates symbiotic origins of eukaryotic membranes |
title_sort | statistical anomaly indicates symbiotic origins of eukaryotic membranes |
topic | Articles |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4454172/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25631820 http://dx.doi.org/10.1091/mbc.E14-06-1078 |
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